No political Generals

There was a time when the entire fauji fraternity used to be vigilantly mindful of the Army Chief’s izzat. The Chief of the Indian Army was deemed and respected as an embodiment of professional elan, poise and calm confidence. Even when the armed forces had reason to disagree with this or that element of  civilian supremacy, its leadership had always disdainfully perched itself above the politicians’ quarrels. The armed forces never allowed themselves to be seen as partial in domestic politics. General Bipin Rawat seems determined to break that mold, and, in the process, he is jeopardising the traditional respect the citizens and the entire political class have had for the Indian Army.

Ever since he assumed the leadership of the Indian Army, he has demonstrated a hitherto unsuspected gift of garrulity, speaking on matters pertaining to strategic and foreign policy, issues that better be left to be dealt by the Foreign Office. Now, he has allowed himself to comment, in public, on a purely political subject. It is difficult to divine any justification for an Army Chief expressing views on a political party, the All India United Democratic Front; and, it is equally difficult to fault the AIUDF chief, Badruddin Ajmal, for joining issues with General Rawat. The General invited the retort. 

It should be a matter of dismay to every constitutional purist that General Rawat has yet not been rapped on the knuckles by the political executive for speaking out of turn. It is possible that General Rawat is betraying the in-house thinking within the government. Even then, as a professional soldier, he should leave the political matters to professional politicians; nor, should he allow himself to be sucked into the political masters’ controversies. As the Chief, he has the professional obligation — as also the weight of tradition — to preserve the Indian armed forces as a secular institution. As it is, the Indian polity is passing through a particularly testing time. The last thing our constitutional system needs is for the Indian Army to become a source of acrimony and bad blood in the political arena. The onus is on General Rawat.